Indian Country Today video news report for May 9, 2019, with Vincent Schilling

MMIW Awareness on May 5 recognized by White House, an interview with Billy Mills and more

Watch this week's video news report here

Greetings and She:kon everyone, this is Vincent Schilling and I am the associate editor of Indian Country Today and your host for this week’s Video News Update. With this video update, Indian Country Today will bring you some of our top stories to hit the site.

President Trump took to Twitter Wednesday and urged Republicans to vote against H.R. 321, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act. That bill would essentially reaffirm the Mashpee Wampanoag reservation as trust land.

In response to the president’s words, Democratic leaders pulled two bills, H.R. 312, and a second bill H.R. 375, that would reaffirm the authority of the Secretary of the Department of the Interior to take land into trust for tribes.

While Republican Congressman Paul A. Gosar of Arizona’s 4th district lauded the pulling of the bills a victory, Rep. Gallego of Arizona's 7th Congressional District issued the following statement calling out Trump stating “It is the height of hypocrisy to claim you are treating Native Americans equally while including a racial slur in your tweet.

As Indian Country Today previously reported, Gold medal-winning Olympian Billy Mills, Lakota, hosted his fifth annual Dreamstarters closing ceremony on Tuesday night in Alexandria Virginia just outside of Washington D.C. to wrap up a four-day Dreamstarter Academy in which Native youth were awarded $10,000 grants to pursue their dreams.

For the past five years, Native youth have applied annually for the chance to be awarded $10,000 in support of fulfilling their dreams affecting Indian Country.

In an interview with Indian Country Today, Billy Mills described the legacy behind his work for his IndianYouth.org website and the Native youth Dreamstarters effort.

On May 3rd, the White House issued a proclamation on the White House website under presidential actions in acknowledgment of Missing and Murdered Indigenous / Native American and Alaska Natives.

The proclamation, titled Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives Awareness Day, 2019 reads as follows in part:

On Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives Awareness Day, we draw attention to the horrible acts of violence committed against American Indian and Alaska Native people, particularly women and children. the proclamation cited statistics and efforts to be employed by the White House and ended with “NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 5, 2019, as Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives Awareness Day.”

Aliyah Chavez and Tsanavi Spoonhunter will join Indian Country Today as tribal media fellows this summer. As graduate students, both were part of the 40 Native journalists who covered Native Election Night with Indian Country Today, First Nations Experience and Native Voice One. Chavez and Spoonhunter reported and communicated election results to the anchors for five hours straight. Welcome!

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Also, check out my #NativeNerd column posted every Friday. Last week, I wrote about dedicating this past Monday, my birthday as positive tweet day.

Again, Thanks for watching this week’s ICT video news report. I am Vincent Schilling, associate editor of Indian Country Today. Follow me on Twitter at @VinceSchilling.